thingsThisWeek

Aug 10, 2024 ∞

thingsThisWeek #103

We’ve been to Menorca for a week, Chaves for another one, and are now back in Lisbon, waiting for our next plane ride out of here. Next up: Azores.

🏖️ Menorca was awesome. I know I probably use awesome more often than I should, but it was. Easy, simple, amazing beaches, good food, nice people.

movieStar left her phone at home, but we managed to find a way to get it to her. Five or six people involved in the operation, but she did get it on the second day, when our friends joined us on the island.

At the same time, adding a bit more stress to the week, we got the news: the girls who live in the place we own are getting a divorce, and moving out in a month. I need to find new tenants, but we’re on the move for close to three months. It sucks. For them, of course, but for us as well. That rent is what allows me to have as little work as I can, but I don’t like having people I don’t know living in my place. Thankfully the girls are helping along (immensely), and I believe the situation might be sorted, two weeks later.

Menorca was, as I said, great. movieStar managed to find us a very cool apartment, in a nice and quiet place, with a swimming pool. Walking distance to a beach, and dozens of other ones available with a car (or bus, if you’re so inclined).

Quieter than Ibiza, or Maiorca, it’s the perfect place for families. Half the plane passengers were under 10. Most of those (judging by the return flight) went straight to the resorts at the only unbearable place on the island: Galdana. Taller buildings, all inclusive. Hell.

We took our time visiting a multitude of beaches, and smaller villages. We had fun.

Most of the beaches have a very nice system: there is car parking far from the beach. You leave your car there, stock up on water, and make your way to the beach on foot. There is no infrastructure on the beach, except for a bathroom.

If you’re lucky, you’ll find someone pushing a small container with beer and water.

On one of these we found a gentleman selling beer for xtra-hombres. A very delicious, and stronger, beer made in Zaragoza. We drank the four cans he had, and then had to go back to being regular hombres.

This was also the beach where we figured we couldn’t survive without a beach umbrella. No shade whatsoever. I started asking people who were leaving if they’d be kind enough to sell their umbrella, and the third one said yes. I offered to pay well above what they cost, but they wouldn’t accept it. Nice people.

We also made our way to Binibeca, had fish at restaurant in Alcaufar, ate tapas at Maó’s fish market, and a delicious meal at Aurora’s, in Ciutadella.

Another day, another beach: Cavalleria.

I had a wardrobe malfunction, but quickly found a shop in Fornells, when I was able to find a shirt before sitting down for dinner. The local festivities were taking place, we strolled around after ice-cream. tinyMovieStar, again, quick to make friends. She speaks the cutest Spanish, and loves it when kids understand her.

Final full day, Galdana. Meh. Ciutadella by night, again.

We slept, packed our bags, loaded them in car, and made our way to the final beach: Mitjana. More beer. More cliff jumping. We left hours later, straight to the airport. Sand clinging to our legs and feet. Happy. Very.

Note: Internet speed on the island is crazy slow, when compared to what we have at home. But roaming in the EU is super these days, when compared to what we had in the past. You cross a border, the phone picks up the new network, and that’s it. No extra fees, no extra hassle. You just use it as if you’re home. Brilliant.

🎵 We landed in Lisbon, went home to pick up the car, and were back on the road. Spent less than an hour there. Off to Chaves, and the wonderful N2 festival. Branko as favorite show this time.

We spent time with our buddies, family, and worked my ass off. Pool time too.

tinyMovieStar got to know one of singers she likes, and also made soup at the restaurant where we eat our meals. Everyone loves her, they know her since she was born, and it really feels like we are visiting family.

Since we had some time after the actual festival, we thought it would be a good idea to visit Santiago de Compostela. It’d been years since I was there, and movieStar had never been. Off we went.

🇪🇸 Santiago is packed full of religious tourists, but we still had no trouble finding a parking spot, and a place for lunch. We did not stay too long. Time for photos, churros, and drove back.

🏟️ Throughout the weeks, we’ve watched part of the Olympics. Not too much, but a lot more than on previous years.

🌈Purchased a pack of Wes Anderson filters for Lightroom. Loving it for a specific type of photos.

🗞️ Feedbin renewal, subscription paid for another year.

🔋 Ordered a Sharge Retro 67. It will probably arrive when we’re not home. It will probably be returned.

🍿 Movies, finally. The Beekeeper, Cesária Évora, The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare.

📱 I’ve been mostly offline, while still holding a phone all the time. Photos, videos, maps, shopping, it’s impossible to get away.

Jul 25, 2024 ∞

thingsThisWeek #102

This update is coming from the lovely island of Menorca. Maybe I should have done it in Spanish! Anyway, we had some stuff to do before getting here…

🩸 More blood tests for movieStar (she’s ok).

💈 A visit to the barber on Tuesday (no issues here).

🦷 A visit to the dentist on Tuesday (I’m ok).

📦 Pick up a new G-Shock (loving it).

🌡️ tinyMovieStar’s temperature rising right before we have to get on a plane. Classic tinyMovieStar.

She was fine the next morning, coming down from a quite high fever, and even went to school. She had to pick up her stuff, say “thank you” to her amazing teachers and staff, and goodbye to everyone. She’ll see them again in October only. That’s 80 days! She’ll miss the first month and a half of school, for a very valid reason: she’s traveling!

💻 More photo editing. All done, thankfully. I’ll shoot the music festival in August, but I’ll probably have no work until October. Freelancing sucks, and a bit more when people/clients have no idea when you’re in town. They stop calling. Understandably.

🇪🇸 It was time to fly to Menorca, and begin our week of relaxation.

That would be flight #11 for our 4 year old.

Day One

First trip with one single watch, the one I’m wearing. It feels odd to do this, of course. Not having another one in the backpack is just strange. But, since the GW-5000U (must find a nickname for this one) had just arrived, and needed to fully charge, what was I to do?

movieStar also decided to travel light, and forgot her phone at home. She only noticed at the airport, too late to go back. Travel days are, of course, already pretty stressful, and we had to spend the time before boarding trying to sort this one out. Nice.

The lady who helps us with cleaning up (and has a key) also does that for a few of our family members, and she was at a cousin’s place. In another city. She had the key with her. She gave him the key. He handed the key to his wife. She drove to the city (about an hour), and left the key with her sister. Another friend was flying to the island to meet us, and she’s picked up the key, drove to our place, and retrieved the phone!

Anyway, we got on the plane, and found ourselves in a Spanish island one and a half hours later. A taxi ride away from our final destination.

As soon as we found our apartment, we went to the supermarket. tinyMovieStar vanished. She was unaccounted for for about three minutes, but I think I aged a bit during those minutes. Found her quite far from the supermarket, closer to the apartment. I was pale, and pissed.

Swimming pool, and we were done. Time to wrap up day one.

Day Two

First full day on the island.

Our friends were flying in today, and picking up the car we’ll use to drive around the island. Sadly, their flight was with easyjet, and there’s nothing easy about that. Flight delayed, and then cancelled. With the passengers already sitting in the plane. Maybe tomorrow. Classy.

In the meantime we went to a couple of beaches close by, and spent an incredible amount of time at the pool.

tinyMovieStar got a bit of fever, again. I rushed (walking as fast as the heat would allow) to the nearest pharmacy. She bounced back pretty quickly, with medicine and a lot of water.

No 📚, no 🎵, no 📺, no 🍿.

Jul 21, 2024 ∞

thingsThisWeek #101

Slowly getting back into the habit of writing these updates. It took longer than a week this time, and I wonder how long it will take going forward. We’re spending a lot of time away from the city, I’m sure things may be slowing down here, as I’m busier. Apologies in advance.

🏥 Last weekend started with a visit to the nearest hospital. movieStar had been coughing for a while, and impossible to talk her into seeing a doctor. During the night she coughed so hard that she threw her back. Thankfully, as that made it easier to take her to the hospital. It was a stressful day, surprisingly, as the blood test showed something odd. In the end we were good, but spent a few hours worrying like hell.

🦠 I also have a cough, a really nasty one. Will I ever be able to go a week without some kind of infection? More on that next time…

👰🏻 A cousin (movieStar’s side of the family) is getting married next year. She was in town this weekend, letting us know about it, and playing with tinyMovieStar just before that, and right after. She lives in LA, for over a decade now, and she’s having two wedding ceremonies: one over here, the other over there. We’d love to attend both, more so because the US version will take place in Big Sur, and that’s been on my list for many decades. Being super tall, and super blonde, of course my sweet daughter loved her. She spent most of the time ignoring us, and just hanging with her.

🐶 Mini Chori is here. Just in time for some travel time. Fingers crossed he comes back with us, safe.

📷 Unexpectedly, more work. An assignment for a French magazine. I got to spend two days at Comporta, a super hyped place in the country, that I have never been a fan of. I couldn’t quite understand the whole thing. I do now. The trick is… drum roll… having millions of euros! That is why all the F1/movie/royalty/fashion people seem to like it so much.

😢 In the city, close to home, a theater company got an eviction notice from the university where they had their operations for over a decade. It was quite sad to see them move out.

🍿 somehow I managed to get to the end of Axel F. No idea why I did that.

📺 Sunny, a couple episodes on my own, Becoming Karl Lagerfeld, the whole thing, with movieStar. Both quite odd. Sunny is a better odd, the other one felt like a caricature most of the time.

Jul 13, 2024 ∞

thingsThisWeek #100

Yep, you’re reading it right. 100. The one hundredth edition of these here weekly recaps is here. Failed a few, paused for a while, but we made it to this stage. One. Hundred.

I wish the week had been more epic, but that’s how things happen.

🐟 On Saturday we had lunch with my parents at a local spot, my mom wanted her yearly dose of sardines. She had them, delicious.

We then drove out of town, to my in-laws. It’d been a while since our last visit. My brother in law joined us, with his girlfriend.

🍼 Uncle. Again. Hopefully. My brother in law announced it, her girlfriend is pregnant. They tried for a while, so this is super welcome! tinyMovieStar is beyond excited: a new cousin just arrived, and now this on the way. She keeps saying she’s the oldest cousin, happy she outranks them. She wants to babysit them.

🎉 The kindergarten Arraial happened! We all pitched in. I was part of the grill crew, so drove to pick up grill from another school, took care of the coal purchase, and grilled/sold meat/sausages/turkey/sardines for hours. It was exhausting, but very fun. movieStar was in charge of the second-hand clothing sale.

🐼 Panda Pixels now has a custom domain. Adding to the number of maique.eu subdomains, you can now find the black & white experimentation at panda.maique.eu. Using Obscura camera app for most of those shots.

⚽️ Football Friday, quarter-finals of the Euro2024 championship. We lost. That ended our participation in the competition, and it was probably the last time Ronaldo and Pepe played in one of these. They will be missed. We are now waiting for the finals. Spain gets our support.

📺 Public Affairs Office in the Sky. Japanese, feels like a very sugary soap opera. Probably what I needed. Watched a couple of episodes.

🍿 Tried to watch the new Beverly Hills Cop movie, but found it toooooo boring. Took me the whole week to almost make it to the end. Almost.

📕 Added two Portuguese books to the pile I’m reading. One about the final days of our dictatorship, the other with stories of public transport drivers. Enjoying both.

Jul 4, 2024 ∞

thingsThisWeek #99

We’re now rushing, time seems to be going faster. We’re going to Menorca in under a month. Then it’s off to Chaves. A couple of weeks later, we’ll be on the island. Whenever I think about it, I feel like I can’t plan anything before November. The year is coming to an end, and we have just barely made it to the half-way point.

🎉 Party on Saturday. One of movieStar’s friends. It was cold, windy, so it turned into a short stay. Enough time for some photos, but that was it. We were missing a few layers in our outfits, it was really hard to handle it.

🍿 Movies (The Garfield Movie), and pizza lunch (no lasagna available, sorry), on Sunday. We walked up the hill, had a meal, bought a new pair of Converse sneakers for the little one (and Birkies for mom), watched a movie, had ice-cream, and came back home. Just what we needed.

I got a new pair of sneakers myself, the following day. I now own a pair of Nike Dunk Low, the “Since 72 Pacific Moss” edition.

🥋 Judo, and ballet, is ending next week, it’s summer break time. With that, we won’t have pickups for a while. I love the way back home, a bit later than when we just pick her up from school. tinyMovieStar enjoys being out and about late in the afternoon, when the shops have all the lights on, and there are lots of people out, walking in the street. Most likely we end up at our usual place for dinner…

I really like pickup days.

💈 This week also had time for a haircut. I should have gone a couple of weeks ago, but couldn’t make it. Done now, ready for another month, I guess. As usual, some photos on the way there. Already scheduled the next one, no way I’ll get stuck with long hair in Menorca and Chaves.

📑 Paperwork. Invoices. That stuff I truly hate. Had to do it. It’s done.

🎨 Got anotho’s Lightroom presets. Why? I don’t know. Felt like a good impulse purchase.

🧩 I’ve been visiting Puzzmo on a daily basis, or close to that. Love the puzzles. Fan of Gage’s work for a while. The newsletter is always good too.

⚽️ The Euro madness (only time I watch football) is upon us. First time tinyMovieStar sits through a whole game with us. We don’t really care about the result, we’re not fans. We do watch the matches when the national team is playing, if we can. And, judging by the enthusiasm the little one displays, I suppose we will not be able to skip them.

🍿 Cars, Cars 2. On top of the already mentioned The Garfield Movie.

📺 Tires. Finished it. Not sure why.

🐼 Bear. I caved in. I wanted to play around with it, and needed the upgrade to do it. Found a way to get a discount code (not entirely legit, truth be told), and I’m now enjoying a year of premium Bear. Started a black and white photography blog, mostly as a way to try the whole Bear thing. Doesn’t even have a custom domain yet, and I’m still trying to work out themes and stuff. Tweaking is fun.

Jun 26, 2024 ∞

thingsThisWeek #98

Back to life. Back to reality.

🚌 I am, right now, on a bus. Riding south, heading home, after a couple of days spent with our friends from Chaves. I have been on the road for over a month, and it’s still going.

🗳️ We had another election, and this time I was drafted to the main team. Thankfully I was also able to avoid the main team, for the most part, and just shoot the same person I always do.

But it was great to have the feeling of team work, of belonging. And it is, of course, super fun. A ton of it.

🏊‍♀️ As soon as that ended (the election results were good too), I thought I’d be able to relax for a bit, but movieStar had other plans. We spent a few days in a cool hotel in Lousã. It was awesome. tinyMovieStar spends most of the time in the pool, and so do I. Hours of pool time. Lovely breakfast. Super comfy room.

📧 HEY for Families is here. And we now have a family. We get it for a ~bit~ lot cheaper. Makes it worthwhile, as I don’t think I’d renew at full price.

👀 sticker spotter keeps going. This is the one that’s so easy you post to, I don’t even think about it that much. It’s the one blog that gets updated whenever I have a little time, no thinking required. Just make sure I have stickers left to post. And I always have stickers available.

😅 Ended the month with a couple new watches. I’m almost sure another will show up soon enough.

📺 The shows I was watching ended, as they do. Tokyo Vice, and Shōgun. Sorry to see them both go. I spent the best part of the month with no tv/streaming. I watched a couple of episodes of Tires. Not sure I’ll end it.

🙏🏼 Thanks, @ridwan. Wouldn’t have started these updates again without your push. This was a small, rushed, update, but I hope to be back on track. We’ll see.

Apr 19, 2024 ∞

thingsThisWeek #97

What. A. Mess. Of. A. Week.

🍭 Preparations for the 4th birthday of the little one. That’s what’s going on. That’s what’s important.
☁️ Fuck. The housing situation in town is a LOT worse than before too. Heck, it’s on the news almost daily! And we really don’t want to leave this area. Tough times ahead, for sure.
👁️ Dad had eye surgery, so I got to spend a day with Mom, and my brother, in the hospital’s waiting room. Fun. The operation was a success. We were back the following day, to check up on things. Bonus: same hospital where tinyMovieStar was born, almost 4 years ago.
🍷 Avinho happened, plus a Saturday party. And Sunday’s parties. Driving around. All is good. Weekends are getting a bit crazy, and this will not stop soon. The little one celebrates her birthday on Monday, so this, and next, weekends are also fully booked.
📷 Spent part of Friday at another winery, and then home.
📷 Still on wine, also had the oddest assignment. We drove for very long, and it was a bit disappointing. Too far, for too little. I did get a couple of photos out of it. We have been experiencing lovely weather at the moment, so it was a bit odd to find fog on most of the drive to the Alentejo. It’s always mind boggling when people decide to host you, go to the trouble (and expense) of doing it, and then act like it’s a pain in the rear to have you there. That’s when they should be acting, faking it even, polite.
⭐️ M.b’s photoblogging challenge is now on week three. Days 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18 have been posted. Looking at people’s photos is, as usual, great entertainment.
📺 House of Ninjas. Shōgun.
🍿 Jimmy Carr: Natural Born Killer.
💶 Kagi’s new sales tax policy means I won’t be subscribing for another year, when this one comes to an end. It’s not cheap already, and it will get 23% added on top of that already high price. It’s good, but can’t pay that much for search.
💸 On the other hand, NextDNS renewal came up, and it’s still on. Flickr as well. Both provide services I enjoy. Flickr is an “expensive” subscription by now, but can’t find a decent alternative for how I use it.

Apr 11, 2024 ∞

thingsThisWeek #96

Slow, lazy, week. Some work. Parties at both ends.

🥳 Party Weekend. Crazy Sunday. Too much food. In bed too late. That would sum up things pretty well. It was a long, and exhausting one. More are coming, feels like everyone’s birthday is in April.
💤 Monday was painful. The little one would not get up. The whole week was hard, as far as leaving the house.
👻 New Boo! post. We visited Malaysia this time. These posts take time, but I should try to get at least two of them out every month.
📷 Assignment for the paper on Thursday and Friday, officially turning this slow week into a work one. Yay. The Thursday one was an epic visit to a place I know well, but obviously not well enough. What an impressive building they have in the city, and what an amazing restaurant they have in there! We had a very long, delicious, lunch, with plenty of Kirin Ichiban to wash it down. Brilliant. Not sure about the one on Friday, as I’m posting this before that even happening.
💃🏻 We are now Barbie Hunters! After the “Grannies months”, we’re now trying to find a Barbie for our very own tinyMovieStar. We’ve seen dozens already, and not a single one was purchased. We need to find a WOW one.
⭐️ mbApr is still going on, and a few more photos have been added. Days 05, 06, 07, 08, 09, 10, 11 were posted. Still relying heavily on M.b’s post scheduling feature, even though I don’t get it entirely. Sometimes I can pick Mastodon as crossposting option, while there’s only Bluesky on others. Odd.
📺 House of Ninjas. Tokyo Vice. Shōgun. I could just copy and paste this section, week after week.
👨🏻‍🎨 It started when ChaMona released a Scribbles theme for Mona. Then I opened NNW and thought I should port it. David mentioned Fiery Feeds, and that made even more sense, since it’s the one I use. I now have a Scribbles theme for both? Maybe.
🔋 Got a new powerbank. Not cute as my favorite one, but it’s new. Battery on the phone is not, I need all the help I can get.
🎙️ There’s a new podcast in town: 3x2. Two friends talking about photos. Nice. When those two friends are Jason and Martin? Nicer.

Apr 4, 2024 ∞

thingsThisWeek #95

Easter vacation, with an epic trip up north (that went MUCH better than expected), and back to little work in the city.

🚌 Family Easter Weekend! That was, obviously, the event of the week. Of the month!
🦷 Wednesday was a VERY busy day. A visit to the dentist, and a quick portrait shoot. Wow. Photos on the way to both events. On Thursday I edited the handful of photos I would then send, but no day topped Wednesday in terms of busyness. A very slow week. Again.
🍔 I had a delicious burger at one of the Dallas Burger Club joints (yay for truffle mayo), and remembered a conversation I had with movieStar a couple of weeks ago. She noted we’re not up-to-date any more, when it comes to hip places. We have no idea where people are eating these days, and new places are opening every day!
📺 On the TV streaming front, I managed to finish Griselda. Tokyo Vice, and Shōgun, the usual suspects, are on the one-episode-a-week routine. So I started watching House of Ninjas, and it’s actually kinda fun, in a not-too-serious way. It will do!
⭐️ mbApr is on. Days 01, 02, 03, and 04 have been posted. Maybe I’ll manage a few more.
📱 Moved phone service provider again, after a couple of weeks on the other one. I was entitled to a promotional monthly price when I moved, but something happened on their end, and I didn’t get it. They said I should have, they’d check and fix the situation. I was told they’d get back to me in 72 hours. They did not. Ever again! So, since I also had an eSIM from a competing provider installed, exactly the same cost, and better network coverage,… I moved. The process of moving is so easy these days, there is really no reason not to, if you’re not happy.
🍜 I (well, MrBatsu is) back at slinging links at people. It all starts at another Scribbles hosted blog, and gets pushed to Mastodon using the wonderful new EchoFeed service (currently in beta and invite-only), by Mr Robb Knight.I repurposed one of Jarrod’s wonderful Shortcuts (this one), and that gets me the full post in the clipboard, ready to paste into Scribbles. A way to do it from Drafts (or directly) would be awesome, but there’s no API (or any other way) yet. Still, happy to have this going again.

Mar 28, 2024 ∞

thingsThisWeek #94

Back at doing next to nothing, as far as work goes. Media consumption back up. Easter vacation is also here, we have tinyMovieStar with us during the day.

🎂 Week (well, late Thursday) started with a kid’s party, complete with cake and beer. For the children and parents, respectively. We had a great time, as most parents are very nice, and our friend from London was in town. tinyMovieStar told us she liked it, but she wishes to have her party at the other garden, as the playground on this one is very small, and has less stuff to play with. She’s worried her guests will not enjoy the party as much. She’s turning four, but has the mind of a 47 year old event planner.
🚿 One of the longer lasting “No!” in tinyMovieStar’s world: the shower. She loves long baths, but a shower was, until now, something she would avoid. Unless there was no other way (hotels and such), she would just refuse them. This week she finally, out of the blue, decided she likes showers.
🌳 Weekend at the in-laws, after lunch with my own set of parents. It was not as peaceful as I’d wish. Full house. Noisy. I suppose this upcoming weekend will be even more challenging, as we’re traveling with my parents, as well as my brother’s family.
📷 Small assignment for the paper, and the chance to visit a new hotel in town. A nice one. The reason for the visit was a wine tasting with a twist: expensive ones. Some were REALLY expensive, at least for my wallet. Photos as exciting as you might expect, from a small conference room with people sitting down, drinking wine. But that was it, as far as work goes, so I guess I can’t complain.
🌧️ Weather wise, it was a shitty week.
📺 Still watching the same as last week: The Gentlemen (finished by now, but watching again with movieStar), Tokyo Vice, and Shōgun. Added Griselda to the rotation.
🍿 Quiz Lady. I like Awkwafina. Poor Things.
🌐 Back on Orion for a while. Also back on Arc (iOS).
📱 Moved cell service provider, again. I was very happy with what I had, but another company offers double the data for the same price. Caveat: I needed to be under-25. Since I’m over twice the limit age, I had to work around that limitation. I had an idea, but thought it was simply too far fetched, I doubted the operator would even fall for it. They did. I mean, I believe they know what’s going on, but just choose to ignore, and keep the money coming in every month. Anyway, impressed with the speed of it all. New SIM in the mail, installed, old number moved to new SIM, and move of that same card to eSIM requested and installed. That took a couple of days, without leaving the house.
📥 Scribbles keeps getting better. Contact Form was added to the feature list, harnessing the power of Letterbird. You can now drop me a line at the new contact page, if you were looking for a way to get in touch /s
🎙 What the Hack added to list, but not too sure.